


Nightmares

by Kazure



Series: Ava Trevelyan & Krem Aclassi [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Major character death - Freeform, Nightmares, Not Really Character Death, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 17:57:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5215238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kazure/pseuds/Kazure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alvina Trevelyan wakes up from a nightmare that shakes her to her core and Krem is there to help her recover. </p><p>TW: Temporary major character death<br/>TW: Severe illness</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this was all started because of a dream I had. Then my friend, TheAssassinLover, demanded that I write it into a fic, so I did. This is angsty at the beginning, but ends up fluffy. I'm a sucker for happy endings. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated, constructive criticism is always welcome.

It was a position they’d been in many times before. Krem was sitting up, back pressed to the headboard of Ava’s bed while she lay with her head in his lap. He had a hand on her head, gently stroking her hair while she slept. She had difficulty sleeping often, and it helped calm her when he watched over her. That way, if she started to have night terrors, he could wake her at a moment’s notice.

He pulled back his hand from her head and placed it over his mouth, trying to muffle the sounds of his coughing. When he couldn’t control them any further, he carefully slid out from under Ava and got off the bed, trying to contain the coughs that were wracking his body. Alvina woke up, looking over at her lover. “Luaidh? Are you okay?”

Krem tried to speak between body shaking coughs, but was unable to. Ava got up quickly and went over to her desk, pouring a glass of water from a pitcher that was sitting there. She took it over to Krem where he drank it swiftly, the hacking finally dying down. He could taste blood in the back of his throat, a feeling that he didn’t disclose to Alvina lest he worry her.

She rubbed a hand over his back, trying to soothe the raw feeling in his chest. “It’s getting worse,” she said quietly. The illness was a touchy subject with him.

“I know amatus.” He replied, a touch of sadness in his voice. “I don’t want to talk about it now. Let’s try and get some sleep, okay?” he looked over at her, a lopsided grin on his face. He seemed to be acting like his normal self, though Ava had a feeling that there was something he wasn’t telling her.

“Alright, luaidh. It’s your turn to rest.” She went and climbed into bed, her top half propped up on a couple of pillows. She pulled the covers back and inviting Krem in to lay beside her. He followed her and laid down on his side, wrapping an arm around her waist and snuggling into her. She smiled and smoothed out his hair.

“Ava?”

“Yes?”

“Would you sing to me? That one song, from when you were a girl. I can’t remember the name of it.”

“The Girl in Red Crossing?”

“That’s the one.” He said, looking up to her with a smile.

“Of course, luaidh.” She cleared her throat before starting to softly sing, “ _Too long I have traveled, soon I'll see her smiling. The girl in Red Crossing I'm longing to see. O, I know she is there, daisies in her hair, waiting by the chantry to marry me…_ ”

Krem listened, watching Alvina sing. He wasn’t falling asleep, but her soft voice was lulling him into drowsiness.

“ _I've dreamed of the kiss I stole 'neath the arbor. I've dreamed of the promise 'neath the old ash tree. O, I know she is there, daisies in her hair, waiting by the chantry to marry me…”_ she continued, watching his face. His eyelids were starting to droop.

“ _One last stream to cross, one last hill to wander. Until I reach the love I'm longing to see. O, I know she is there, daisies in her hair, waiting by the chantry to marry me.”_ He was fighting to keep his eyes open now, trying to stay awake to hear the rest of the song.

“ _Running through the streets, only silence follows. Elven arrows sunk into the old ash tree. O, I know she's there, daisies in her hair, waiting by the chantry to marry me._ ” Krem’s attempts to stay awake were for naught, and he was on the verge of crossing into the realm of sleep.

 _“Ruby on the green, petals lost and drifting. Take her to His side, Andraste hear my plea. I found her lying there, daisies in her hair, waiting by the chantry to marry me.”_ By the end of the song, Krem’s breathing had evened out and he was in a deep sleep. Ava sat there and started going over what she needed to accomplish during the following day. When she had finished planning her day, she moved on to the following week, though the monotony of it began to bore her and she found herself yawning.

Before she knew it, everything had faded to black and she didn’t wake until the sun had just started to crest over the horizon. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but it left her feeling well rested. Knowing that Krem normally left at daybreak, she decided to wake him up. She touched his shoulder and shook him lightly, “Time to wake up, luaidh. It’s morning.”

He didn’t move. It was odd, normally he wasn’t a very deep sleeper, and a soft shake woke him up. “Come on, quit playing. I know you’re awake,” she said, shaking him again.

Still he did not move. She looked at him, and he was oddly still. “Krem this isn’t funny. Get up.” Worry was blooming in her chest at this point. He normally broke his jokes halfway through, too amused with himself to keep up the façade. This was wrong. This wasn’t like him at all.

She shook his shoulder again, raising her voice and saying firmly, “Cremisius Aclassi, you’d better get up right now.”

He didn’t move, didn’t speak, and it was at that moment that Alvina realized that he wasn’t even breathing. “No. No this can’t be…” she trailed off, placing a hand on his chest. She didn’t feel a heartbeat. “Krem get up. Luaidh, _please_.”

Ava brought her hand to his neck, checking there for a pulse. The only thing she felt was an eerie coolness to his flesh, an odd stillness to his form.

“NO!” She yelled out, hitting his chest. “Get up! Get up this instant!” She knew he had been sick, but there was no way that he was this sick. No, he would have told her if he was, wouldn’t he?

She kept screaming, yelling obscenities at him and hitting him, though none of the hits were as hard as she could muster. She was in shock, and she couldn’t believe that he was gone, taken from her in the dead of night.

The door to her room was thrown open, guards stormed in, and everything stopped.

Krem was sitting in front of her, shaking her awake, the darkness of night still around them. His face was wrought with worry. He was holding the tops of her arms in a vice like grip, staring at her.

“How… how could you do that to me?!” She yelled at him, her face wet with tears. Her eyes were unfocused, as though she couldn’t see him. Her mind was still filled with the nightmare, even after she was awake.

He pulled her into an embrace, holding her tightly to his chest. “It’s over now amatus. I promise, it was just a bad dream.”

That was when she broke, her body seizing with gut-wrenching sobs. She folded in on herself, the visions in the nightmare all too real. “You… you were… and I… ” She trailed off, unable to form any form of coherent sentence.

He held her close, rocking her back and forth. “It’s okay now. Everything’s okay, shh…” He didn’t know what she’d seen, but the dream must have been something that shook her to her core. She normally woke from the terrors frightened, but only a few times before had she ever woken up crying. This time, she had been crying even while asleep. Her limbs had been flailing, and she was screaming both his name and unintelligible. None of it made sense.

He held her for what seemed like forever, not trying to force anything from her. He simply rocked her back and forth and whispered nonsense to her, trying to calm her down.

Once her sobs had ceased and she was no longer shaking, he pulled back to look at her. She clung to him tightly, looking up at him with panic.

“I’m not going anywhere amatus, don’t worry.”

She nodded, staying silent.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She hesitated before lowering her head and nodding. “It… it seemed so real. We were here, like normal, but you were ill. It was bad, more severe than I thought. We went to bed as we usually do, but when I woke up, you were…” she trailed off, unable to meet his eyes.

Krem grabbed her hand, bringing it up to rest over his heart. “Feel that? I’m here with you, healthy, and I don’t plan on leaving any time soon.” He was grinning, though his eyes were still filled with worry.

Ava nodded, keeping her hand on his heart. He entwined his fingers with hers, kissing the top of her head. She hummed quietly, looking up at him with a faint smile.

“Did I ever tell you about the time that the Chargers and I had to lure a giant out of a cave for a noble who planned to control it with a charm he bought?”

Alvina had heard the story many times before, and it differed every time she heard it. She welcomed the distraction though, so she shook her head. “I don’t believe so. Tell me what happened.”

“Well, you see, there was this noble. He bought this charm from a man that said that it would allow him to control a giant, and so he hired us to draw a giant out of its cave. He said that if we could bring it to him, then he would use the charm and then it would be under his control. He promised to pay us a good sum of money, too. He didn’t seem like the brightest of men though, so we were skeptical about his charm working.”

Alvina nodded, listening. So far the story sounded mostly the same as the times she’d heard it in the past.

“So the Chief gets the money up front, just in case this guy’s charm is a dud, and we set off for this giant’s cave. We go in and we get to this giant. Real big, really nasty creature. He had this one gigantic blue eye in the middle of his forehead, and these huge tusks on the sides of his mouth like a tusket, only these things are longer than the Chief’s arm. They’re huge, and razor sharp. He’s got smaller ones too, by his nose, but those aren’t going to cause much of a problem unless you’re up at his mouth, and in that case you’re already a goner.”

Krem was smiling and getting really into telling his story, using hand gestures and making faces. He always enjoyed telling stories, and it was easy to become captivated even if you’d heard the tale before.

Ava watched him, her expression softening as he went on. “His back and his shoulders are covered in these giant spikes, they’re black and sharp and kind of like bone. He’s got the same stuff on his knuckles, so if you get hit by them it’s gonna pack quite a punch. He’s tall, like, over twice the size of the Chief, so he warned us all to be careful. He said to keep our distance, but to make sure to keep the giant following us. All of us head in, and there’s these spiders. Not just little ones either. These things are huge, and they’re everywhere. So we’re fighting them and trying to make our way to the giant. We get to him, and he’s asleep.”

Ava was smiling at this point. Seeing Krem happy and excited was always a good way to boost her mood. “So the Chief throws something at him. Just picks up this big rock and chucks it at this sleeping giant. Idiot…” he trailed off with a laugh, and Alvina laughed with him. He looked over at her when he heard her laugh, positively beaming.

“Where was I… oh yes, the rock. Okay, so the giant wakes up when this rock hits him, and he’s angry. He gets up, and he starts chasing us. Now giants are big and strong, but they’re pretty dumb and pretty slow. So we’re running from this thing, and we’re fighting spiders because these things are coming out of the woodwork. We get out of the cave and lead this pissed off giant to the noble, and he tries to use his charm. No surprise, but it doesn’t work.”

Ava giggled, listening as Krem carried on with the story. “So this guy is holding this useless charm and isn’t used to running, so the giant catches him and snaps him in half. Carries the body back with him to the cave and leaves us alone because we just kept running after the charm failed. The Chief was mighty glad that he collected the money ahead of time.”

“I think that’s the most entertaining that story’s ever been.”

“What do you mean? I thought you hadn’t heard it before?”

Ava smiled, a twinkle in her eyes. “I may have fibbed a bit. I’ve heard it a few times, but I like it when you tell stories, so I told you I hadn’t heard it.”

Krem huffed, pretending to be upset. “Maybe I won’t tell any more stories since you’ve heard them all.”

“Nooo,” Ava said, making sure to drag out the word dramatically.

Krem laughed. “Fine, but next time I’ll make sure to tell one you haven’t heard before.”

“Alright, deal.” She said, smiling. She looked up at him as he looked down at her. “I love you, luaidh.”

“I love you too, amatus.”

Alvina reached up, running a hand through Krem’s hair. “You’re getting due for a trim.”

“Am I?” Krem brought a hand up, touching his own hair. “I suppose I am. I’ll get it done soon.”

“You don’t _have_ to…” Ava said, a small smirk on her countenance.

“Oh? And why is that?”

“Well you see…” she said, moving to straddle his waist, fisting both hands in his hair. “It gives me something to hold on to.”

She pulled him down to crash their lips together, a hot meeting with clashing teeth and tongues. All of the pent up emotions from earlier in the night were all flooding up to the surface, the fear and desperation driving them together like a magical force.

Krem gripped her waist, pulling her flush against his body. She was soft against him, all smooth skin and soft curves. Their clothes were but a thin barrier between them, her thin nightclothes and his cotton shirt and breeches didn’t contain the heat that they exchanged, and it felt like they were burning from the insides out.

He broke the kiss first, opting to trail kisses down to her jawline, being careful to not be too rough on the scar that ran just below her jawline on her neck. It wasn’t a new scar, but it was filled with frayed and sensitive nerves. He reached the thickest part of it, where the knife had strayed from its original course for about a half an inch before correcting its course. He sucked softly over the spot and she arched into him, a throaty moan escaping her lips.

He continued tracing her scar with his lips and tongue, wringing sounds from her mouth like music. He broke away from her neck, meeting her lips once again in a kiss that was different than before. Less desperation now, but more passion. Her hands went to his breeches, moving to undo the laces when he broke away, shaking his head. “Not like this amatus. I want our first time together to be something that isn’t out of fear or desperation. I want to make it special for you.”

She nodded, her face flushed. “I hadn’t considered that luaidh. Thank you.”

“No need to thank me,” he said, pressing his lips to her temple.

Ava smiled, turning to Krem. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

* * *

 

_Factum!_

**Author's Note:**

> Luaidh: A term of endearment in Scottish Gaelic  
> I took a few liberties with where the Free Marches would be on a real world map, but according to a source I found, it would be in the Celtic regions. Sebastian's voice in Dragon Age 2 had more of a Scottish accent to it, so I decided to use that and find one of the Celtic languages from the Scottish region. Scottish Gaelic is the one I settled on. 
> 
> You can find more of my works, or send me prompts, at my blog, kaz-writes-things.tumblr.com


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